 Deeply immersed in traditional Catholic-Monastic theology, in his essay "Monastic Peace", Trappist monk Thomas Merton, repeats the standard line: "Man was created by God to love him..." Right... And because of "Original Sin", I / we are all inclined for a head-long rush into hell... our sensuality gives radiant cover to the Endless Abyss... This being our starting point, we obviously stand in perpetual need of the salvation brought to us by a Divine Savior... If we are blessed -- or profoundly lucky -- we will not be among those whose everlasting life will be one of everlasting torment...
Ah, but what if... What if there is another story? What if, instead of "Man was created by God to love him" -- which is exactly why we went to the pound to get a dog for a pet: we wanted a dog to love us -- What if, instead, we went to the pound because we recognized our desire and capacity for loving a dog? So instead of an "Original Ego", what if there was an "Altar-Ego"? What if, instead of "God", there is a Quantum Consciousness Who Awakened? What if that Awakened Consciousness first identified Itself as an Overwhelming Desire To Love? What if all manifestation, whether material or spiritual or the unique blend of both in Human, was a "movement of experiential loving"? What if that Divine Awakening is the Altar of Loving? What if "G-d" is, in fact and purpose, the "Awakener"? What if the great long line of Prophets and Mystic Benders and Social rEvolutionaries likewise lived and served as Awakeners? Krishna, Lao-Tzu, Siddartha the Buddha, Pythagoras, Abraham, Moses, Yeshua the Poet, Mother Mary, the Priestess and Bride Mary Magdalene, Muhammed, Rumi the Ecstatic, Lalla, Mirabai, Sts. Francis and Clare, Sts. Teresa and John, Ibn' Arrabi... and on into the more recent Mother Jones, Ramakrishna, Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Aurobindo, Martin Luther King, Jr., Wangari Matthai, Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day, Alan Watts, Nelson Mandela, St. Oscar Romero of the Americas, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan... and the still living masters like Thich Nhat Hahn, Ram Dass, Matthew Fox, Vandana Shiva, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Ellen Grace O'Brian... What if the Awakened One is Really-Love-Without-Limits and that it was entirely because of Love and the Holy Desire to Give Love Endlessly, that all of Creation has been manifested (and continues)? What if everything is all about one Grand Love Feast? Now, consider the Hebrew Scripture "The Song of Songs"... Consider next the insight of the Apostle John, "For G-d so loved..." We love because love is our very nature. We desire the union of flesh with flesh -- not as a diversion from our purpose as a result of some "original sin", but because the One always delights in our loving expressions of oneness? What if Simone Weil uttered absolute truth when she said, "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love"? What if partaking of the Awakening of the One is our fundamental purpose in the audacious wonder of living? A truly "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holiday" will be a Day of Awakening: we will then, at long last, believe that we are each and all worth the very best: we will lay down our weapons, the rich will divest themselves of their wealth, the poor and hungry will be lifted up into a "welcome home" of justice, women will know an equality of rights, opportunity, and leadership in partnership with men, and this precious blue Planet will be revered, protected, and regenerated... and the world religions, oh the world religions, will each finally become an activated compassion and happy agents of kindness-without-end... Youth will be united and thrilled to begin a new chapter of the human adventure: what might they do with no fear to control their minds? With a "take-it-to-your-limit" education? With equality enshrined into every heart and into law? With peace and justice as the organizing principles of a vibrant democracy? ... And all that need happen, is our will and practice to Awaken...
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 Contemplation and Action
Where are the places in which you awaken to the Divine Presence? What are the practices that deepen your contemplative practices? Why should you care if the Holy -- the Quantum -- cares about you? How might you / I increase our capacity for experiencing this Love? When will it be the real day of your / my birth? Or, as the ancient Zen koan goes, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Or, as the old Navajo prayer goes, "Beauty above me, beauty below me, beauty behind me, into beauty I walk"... In still other words, all around us in every possible direction, there is the "Holy of Holies" , the Quantum Consciousness... Whatever door we enter and take off our shoes, we are standing on holy ground... Everything that we do: from sweeping the floor to kneeling before a holy Icon, from making love to organizing for justice: is a moment that is "pregnant with paradise"... As St. Francis intimated by his radically open and wild abandonment into the "folly" of Love, we become the "Mothers of God" by each of our actions... Every detail of an awakening life is the means to a perfect contemplative end... In every home, from the meanest hovel to the most magnificent castle, there are two places of exceptional access to Divinity. The first is the Kitchen and Table of meals: here, life is prepared to feed life... Kitchens are sacred spaces filled with divine potential. The cooks are the ministers of communion. The pots, skillets, and pans are the sacred vessels meant for the preparation and the transport of the divine from "potential" to "actual". A person, a family, or a community sits at the Table to receive the gifting that builds, strengthens, and makes love visible and tasty... The second place of exceptional access to Divinity is the Bed of Lovers. As in the Stunning-Beyond-Comprehention-Song of Songs in the Hebrew Scriptures, so too is the bed of lovers. If not in "this" bed, where else would the Divine Quantum Consciousness exult in manifestation? Of course, "everywhere" is the answer, but that "everywhere" has focal points of power: when "temples" of the Divine meet in sacred sex and gift orgasmic pleasure, each with another, the manifested Reality -- even for just a moment -- becomes a luminous space: as it were, a "Cathedral of Quantum Manifestation" is timelessly constructed... Sweeping the floor, attentively cooking food, and gifting sexual pleasure are sacred means -- from among many -- that effectively cultivate an environment of luminosity: space and time are bridged by the brooms of love-in-action... tender mouths open to receive the gifts of food... bodies undress to merge skin-to-skin... And the darkness of our fears do recede... and the darkness will receive our cultivated light...  December 1, 2016 and wouldn't you know it, but I'm listening to music from the 60's and thinking of John Lennon... I've written poems of Leonard Cohen and Walt Whitman, but never John Lennon... and it is certainly true that Lennon has been the far greater influence on my life...
Living is hard. I've read biographies of each Whitman, Cohen, and Lennon and it is evidentially true that each experienced significant interior turmoil... And like all great artists, their personal turmoil informed their art: but isn't that also true for every artist? Indeed, turmoil informs every human being: turmoil not only leaves its mark upon us, but it is also the process through which our souls are truly born: until we confront our natural brokenness, we are only partially awake and only marginally alive... Living is bliss. Our brokenness is precisely where "the light gets in" (Cohen). We can only sing the body electric or imagine paradise through the empty spaces in our hearts... Some people suffer and grow hard and mean. Others hunker down into weak attempts to forget that they are going to stop breathing -- perhaps sooner rather than later. But there are a few who enter into the "silence" of the empty breath -- before they die -- and come out of it more fully alive, genuinely awake and ready... This "awake and ready" is the bliss of art and rEvolution... I dare you to listen to Leonard Cohen sing "The Window"... then leaf through Whitman's democratic handbook "Leaves of Grass" and read even a few lines... and finally, listen again, to John Lennon sing his "Imagine": do this and know that this very moment -- even with Mr. Trump soon to become President -- is our moment! Each one of our moments -- from here on out -- can become our contribution to art and the rEvolution: by our passion for beauty, creativity, community, justice, equality, compassion, and our activated wills to regenerate this precious blue Planet, we will write a new story that will change our human history: the billionaires in the White House, loose on Wall Street, and warring against the Planet and around the world will not have the last word! Imagine: Write it! Work it! Sing it! Create it! |
AuthorRobert Daniel Smith was privileged to serve the homeless and marginalized for 30 years in California. He is living now almost within shouting distance of the Twin Cities. He is a poet, artist, writer, and long-time Companion of the Way still dreaming... Archives
May 2022
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